- Men’s lack of precision when aiming in the toilet bowl or urinal has been a concern both in households and public toilets.
- Urinal designers have tried many solutions to find a solution to this problem (known as ‘splashback’).
- For example, there are splashback screens that let urine in but not out, ribbed urinals that reduce the splash, etc.
- But at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the authorities came up with a rather unusual solution.
- They etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal.
- And this is the insight they used: “Most men like to play with their urine stream, so you put something in the toilet bowl, and they’ll aim at that.”
- Apparently, this insight came in from someone’s experience from serving in the army in the 1960s, where urinals had small targets placed in them.
- While no formal study has been conducted to understand the effectiveness, the total savings on the cleaning costs have been estimated to be between 8% to 20%.
- A housefly was chosen because it is universally disliked but is not considered intimidating.
- Something pretty (ladybug) or intimidating (spider) may not have been so successful.
This solution is considered a prime example of choice architecture. A choice architect is someone who organises the context in which people make decisions. For example, someone who decides what products go on what shelf at a supermarket store is a choice architect. Menu designers of a restaurant could also be choice architects.
Image courtesy of SuSanA Secretariat through Flickr
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